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U.S. Drops California Case Against Apple After Accessing iPhone

bloomberg.com

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Re: U.S. Drops California Case Against Apple After Accessing iPhone

#51

Post by tn13 »

chii wrote: post #11

I feel like cases shouldn't be droppable unless both parties mutually agree, and the courts also must first agree.the courts should not agree if it's a case that could set a precedent that can have far reaching implications. What if next time, a smaller player than Apple was caught in this sort of case, and they can't fight back as easily? Then it'd be easier to setup a precedent favourable to one party. This seems l…

I don't know about US but in India any common citizen can continue to fight a court case which the government is not interest to pursue further.

Re: U.S. Drops California Case Against Apple After Accessing iPhone

#52

Post by cmurf »

Who wants to take bets on how? My bet is they copied the flash, and are iterating passcode guesses until it slows down too much (or implodes, however it's configured) and then they reflash and iterate again. And it was only a 4 digit passcode, so it was pretty easy to do this.

The next bet is whether they find anything relevant? My bet is no. Next bet after that is whether they admit it? My bet is they won't.

But the more important one is if they tell Apple or open a CVE for the exploit they used if it's not a flash and guess technique they used? Is it ethical for FBI to sit on an exploit?

Re: U.S. Drops California Case Against Apple After Accessing iPhone

#53

Post by partiallypro »

Who wants to be there was absolutely nothing on the phone of value for the intelligence community? It's like the Reddit "what's in the safe" threads.

I just wonder what methods they used, I think it'd be pretty interesting to learn just the general strategy, as I assume they would never tell how exactly they did it.

Re: U.S. Drops California Case Against Apple After Accessing iPhone

#54

Post by personjerry »

I suspect they didn't actually crack it. I think it's likely that they just realized the losing battle they were fighting. It sounded like a lot of public sentiment was against the FBI and they were unlikely to win the case (and it seemed like the information wasn't vital to them anyway) so they just gave an excuse to drop the case.

This has an additional benefit: rather than having the "boundaries" here be defined by a ruling, now in theory they have more time to work in a "gray area".

Re: U.S. Drops California Case Against Apple After Accessing iPhone

#56

Post by molecule »

bradhe wrote: post #13

This claim seems dubious at best. There's no proof that they got access, and it's in their best interest to claim they did. On one hand, I'm not totally sure we should assume that they're not capable of gaining access to iPhones willy-nilly. On the other hand, I'm re-evaluating my security posture...

> This claim seems dubious at best. There's no proof that they got access, and it's in their best interest to claim they did.

Wouldn't that be perjury?

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2778264-Apple-Status...

Re: U.S. Drops California Case Against Apple After Accessing iPhone

#57

Post by cmurf »

chii wrote: post #11

I feel like cases shouldn't be droppable unless both parties mutually agree, and the courts also must first agree.the courts should not agree if it's a case that could set a precedent that can have far reaching implications. What if next time, a smaller player than Apple was caught in this sort of case, and they can't fight back as easily? Then it'd be easier to setup a precedent favourable to one party. This seems l…

Apple agreed. The court agreed.

And yes, next time with a smaller player we get to see if Apple decides to be a friend of the court, or even pony up legal help for it.

Re: U.S. Drops California Case Against Apple After Accessing iPhone

#58

Post by badminton1 »

snarkyturtle wrote: post #49
downandout wrote: post #15

I would treat this claim with a great deal of skepticism. However, this is by far the smartest play for the government. Had they gone to court and lost (probably after an appeal), they would have set a precedent that would be very problematic for them going forward. By claiming this, falsely or otherwise, they hurt Apple's security reputation (most consumers will not understand or care that this happens to be an old…

But they needed to get third-party help in order to access the phone, just by suing Apple they seem like they're incompetent at their jobs...

They are competent as they solved the problem.

Re: U.S. Drops California Case Against Apple After Accessing iPhone

#60

Post by nickff »

snarkyturtle wrote: post #49
downandout wrote: post #15

I would treat this claim with a great deal of skepticism. However, this is by far the smartest play for the government. Had they gone to court and lost (probably after an appeal), they would have set a precedent that would be very problematic for them going forward. By claiming this, falsely or otherwise, they hurt Apple's security reputation (most consumers will not understand or care that this happens to be an old…

But they needed to get third-party help in order to access the phone, just by suing Apple they seem like they're incompetent at their jobs...

On the other hand, many smaller companies could not have afforded to take this dispute as far as Apple did, so the FBI proved they were willing and able to cause significant final injury to anyone trying to protect their users' privacy. One could look at this case as proof of the ability for the FBI to extort information and cooperation.
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